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That’s really cheap. Mine was quoted for just some fiberglass and prep for paint which I stripped the whole car was min 10,000 and that’s not paint paint was 15,000 total price was 25,000
I got everything from the paint shop to paint my car red for 1K. Base/clear. It was the "Shop Line" brand. Maybe not PPG, but it has held up great for five years+.
From: Arizona - If you don’t know CFI, STOP proliferating the myths around it...
$8K doesn't sound that high for the amount of work you must have done. LOTS of labor involved to do it right actually. Is he going to do a cut and buff, do you know? That in itself is a lot of work. Someone mentioned..."PPG Deltron will run over $1000, yes, thousand! per gallon." WOW! I painted my 82 myself and used that system 8 years ago and the paint was $525 a gallon, has the price doubled in 8 years? The PPG clear was $325 a gallon then and that doesn't include all the other things you need. Good paint system is NOT cheap. I guess I will have to check on the new prices of things. Anyway, I think you are fine if its only $8K and he does everything to your satisfaction. Inspect it all carefully for fit and function when finished.GL
The body shop I help at a couple of days a week the cut part is wet sanding the clear coat. They only spray BC/CC. Typically they spray 3-4 coats of clear. We start with 1000 wet. Then 1500 wet. Then 3000 wet. I only do the wet sanding all by hand. The shop guys do the (buff) compounding and then polish. It's easy to burn thru an edge when compounding and polish and my skills are limited. LOL.
Today I spent the most of four hours wet sanding a 1974 Impala hood. It's really good for the shoulder muscles. No one at the body shop is standing in line to wet sand.
With a bit of supervision almost any one can do the wet sanding. The young guys at the body shop love giving me the "old" guy instructions. Never did 1 minute of body work prior to helping at the body shop. The owner is a hot rod guy but keep in mind the deer hits and collision in MN pays the shop bills.
Same here - $1K per gallon of Diamont paint - needed 1.5 gallons. Total for paint and materials = $10K, and that is me doing all disassembly and re-assembly (and some block sanding and stripping paint off various parts). Left the painting to the professionals.
Granted, this is a colour change from LeMans Blue, which is always going to be more labor intensive. Pics below taken after freshly painted and clear coated with four coats of clear - before final wet sand and buffing, of course. Paying a shop to do ALL the work (all disassembly, paint, re-assembly, final sand and buff) would have run about $28K where I'm at. In Cali, double that number....
Last edited by Corvette-ZL1; Nov 10, 2023 at 06:23 PM.
So the 1000 takes out 98% of the orange peal in the clear. The 1500 takes out the 1000 sand scratches. With the 3000 you can start see the shine coming back.
Very likely you will have orange peel in the clear and only the original painter will be willing to "cut and buff". It is unlikely that you can shop this task around as another shop will not accept responsibility for somebody else's paint job. This is something you should negotiate now.
You can do it yourself but you certainly should come back here for advice before starting.
And has anybody here advised you to keep the excess paint materials? You will want to have that to keep after the work is done.
A little update for everyone! Current state is that the car is finally painted! So the 8k that I was quoted turned into 10'500. Basically had to replace the brake master/booster along with a stuck caliper. Also some miscellaneous work on replacing all the rubber trims on the car. The headlights I bought off ebay was junk so he had set of headlights that I went ahead with and had them installed. Overall I couldn't be much happier with the results and this is only the first step of the paint which he still have to buff.
So I was suppose to have the car friday up until he started putting the car back together that he ran into a few problems. All the hoses for the headlight vacuum like were brittle. Since I at this point of the car I went ahead an opted for him to go ahead and convert the headlights to electronic. That way down the road 20 years I won't have to deal with it again.
Next thing I already knew my highbeam signal switch wasn't working when he went to test the lights. Told him to go ahead and fix that. Also mentioned to him my car overheats when I'm at an idle in the summer. He's going to change out my thermostat and coolant. Now since I'm already this deep into repairs I went ahead and told him to check and fix my door locks. Since having the car running my switches didn't work.
This next work is going to be another add on. Also hes going to polish my wheels and repaint the insides black + the bottom trim on the side of the car that's black.. I opted to go ahead and paint that to match the rest of the car.
My family friend seen the car in all 3 stages. He tells me from the car all stripped down primered it's a major change. The car looks 10x better then how I had it before.The good thing about Steven(guy who is doing the work) is going the extra mile on paying attention to the details and giving you the information on what he's doing. The hood was off the car when painted and also you can see he painted inside the bay. He went ahead and sprayed the underside of the hood too. I'm happy! Lol I know it's a bit more extra but in the end the car will be turnkey ready for me.
Last edited by Hellah fresh; Feb 10, 2024 at 05:09 PM.
Designer Imagines A Corvette That Looks More Like a Corvette Than the Corvette
Slideshow: A Jaguar designer's personal project imagines what a modern front-engined Corvette might look like if Chevrolet revisited the golden age of the Stingray.
....fresh out of the booth
